"Then they had the cover on my head," she recalled. "And I could never see them. Because they had my eyes covered, they had my head covered."

'They didn't tie me very good on my feet, so I could get untied when they left.'—Home invasion victim Helen Doderai, 71

While Doderai lay in fear for her life, the intruders tore up her home.

"I just stayed quietly because they were just ransacking everything," she said. "Then they went in the basement and they opened up the deep freeze. But they didn't take anything."

Before the trio left, Doderai was tied up.

"They tied my hands ... my feet and my hands," she said. "But they didn't tie me very good on my feet, so I could get untied when they left."

Phone line cut

The attackers also cut the telephone line and disabled Doderai's car.

But the grandmother was resourceful. When the intruders were gone, she jumped on her garden tractor to go for help.

She drove it to a neighbour's property and when that person wasn't home, she got back on the tractor and made her way to the next farm.

There, she managed to get to a phone, call her family and the police.

"I hope the police get them," Doderai said. "They have to because they're ransacking all over. It never used to be that bad."

Sgt. Roger Tournier, from the Wakaw detachment of the RCMP, said the attack on Doderai is the latest in a string of recent crimes.

"Certainly in the past couple weeks we've probably had eight or 10 incidents," Tournier told CBC News on Thursday. "A lot of it is stolen gas, stolen vehicles, people going into yards, taking stuff out of yards. This is by far the most serious one."

RCMP said they believe the suspects may be driving a white, 2001 GMC pickup truck, which was reported stolen from nearby Bellevue, Sask.

"We're going to increase our patrols in the area," Tournier said. "And we're hoping to be out and about and stop a lot more vehicles ... stopping people and stopping crime."

Police are also reminding people to secure their doors and windows at night.